Well, this nailed me...

[irishScott]

explains how it works at the end. Interesting.

http://homepage.bluewin.ch/Ysewijn/english_Barnum.htm?42

 

[sao123]

Originally posted by: irishScott
explains how it works at the end. Interesting.

http://homepage.bluewin.ch/Ysewijn/english_Barnum.htm?42

please get laid... it will benefit you, as much as the rest of us.

 

[imported_Tick]

Cool. I've always felt that those things were crap, but it's still tempting to find yourself in the descriptions.

 

[Snakexor]

the whole "persona" is how people want to be perceived. nothing is really positive or affirmative. it is all wishy-washy characteristics that all human beings endure, some more so than others, but it is mostly a blanket statements that covers all sanctums.

 

[Pegun]

Can't get past the first page...I don't drink coffee or tea

 

[KarenMarie]

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

 

[Pacfanweb]

Originally posted by: Pegun
Can't get past the first page...I don't drink coffee or tea

It doesn't ask you if you drink it, it asks which one you prefer....so if there was nothing else to drink, which one?

BTW, it doesn't make any difference in the answer, anyway. PT Barnum, FTW.

 

[Vidda]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

I'm sure this could describe 75% of the people on the boards.

 

[KarenMarie]

Originally posted by: Vidda

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

I'm sure this could describe 75% of the people on the boards.

I posted it to see if everyone got the same blurb.

 

[krotchy]

As I read this I couldnt think of anything but fortune cookies, every line was vague and had no meaning.


You may or may not do something possibly. <------- WOW YOU NAILED IT FORTUNE COOKIE, YOU ARE SO WISE

 

[Alone]

Uh... it asks you scale questions, how could it not be right?

 

[wtfbbq]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie

Originally posted by: Vidda

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.

I'm sure this could describe 75% of the people on the boards.

I posted it to see if everyone got the same blurb.

A Short Explanation
Way back in 1949, B. R. Forer published an article (Forer, B.R., The fallacy of personal validation: a classroom study of gullibility. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 44, pp. 118-123), in which he described an experiment with 39 undergraduate psychology students that were given a personality test. A week later, they all received the same personality description, but they were told that these descriptions were their individual results of the test, The students were then asked to rate the accuracy of their "individual" description on a scale from 0 to 5. Of the 39 students, only 5 rated it below 4, and no one rated it below 2. The average rating was 4.3.

The personality description Forer gave to his students was obtained from a newsstand astrology book :

You have a need for other people to like and admire you, and yet you tend to be critical of yourself. While you have some personality weaknesses you are generally able to compensate for them. You have considerable unused capacity that you have not turned to your advantage. Disciplined and self-controlled on the outside, you tend to be worrisome and insecure on the inside. At times you have serious doubts as to whether you have made the right decision or done the right thing. You prefer a certain amount of change and variety and become dissatisfied when hemmed in by restrictions and limitations. You also pride yourself as an independent thinker; and do not accept others' statements without satisfactory proof. But you have found it unwise to be too frank in revealing yourself to others. At times you are extroverted, affable, and sociable, while at other times you are introverted, wary, and reserved. Some of your aspirations tend to be rather unrealistic.
This is exactly the same description you received and that you judged for 72 % exact and worth of being trusted (of course, your answers to the initial questions were not taken into account).

Forer's experiment has been repeated several times since 1949 with some variations and results are always very similar. They show clearly that people tend to accept vague and general personality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves without realising that the same description could be applied to just about anyone. This is the Forer effect. The name Barnum effect stems from psychologist Paul Meehl, reffering to P.T. Barnum's saying that a good circus should have "a little something for everybody". Still another name used to designate the same phenomenon is subjective validation.

Hope, wishful thinking, vanity and the tendency to try to make sense out of experience are the most common explanations that are used to account for the Barnum effect.

The Barnum effect seems to explain, in part at least, why so many, even highly intelligent, people believe that astrology, cartomancy, chiromancy, numerology, fortune telling, graphology, etc., "work". But scientific studies of these pseudosciences demonstrate that they are not valid personality assessment tools at all. Yet all have many satisfied customers who are convinced they are accurate. Customers will often ignore false or questionable claims. In many cases, by their own words, actions, facial expressions or body language, they will provide most of the information that a pseudoscientific counsellor feeds back to them through skilfull use of cold reading techniques.

Note : This demonstration is different from the original Forer experiment in at least two important ways :

* The "initial personality test" is very poor, not trying to inspire too much confidence,
* Subjects are asked to evaluate every phrase of the personality description instead of the description as a whole.

With this in mind, one must expect that the obtained degree of confidence will be lower than those generally reported.

 

[Captante]

I thought the discription seemed like it would apply to just about anyone who took the "test" ... still very interesting though & I love that its really called the "Barnum effect".

I guess there really is one born every minute ... some minutes perhaps 2 or 3!!!